


Swelter

by sadaakirah



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Canon Compliant, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Baggage, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friendship/Love, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Not spoiler-free for anime only watchers, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadaakirah/pseuds/sadaakirah
Summary: "Lieutenant, I do not need to tell you how inappropriate this is,” he said with finality - his voice even, flat and devoid of any other slip-up.Levi and Mikasa unearth new dynamics in their relationship, and Levi  needs to decide if he wants to keep his happiness away at arm's length.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman & Armin Arlert, Mikasa Ackerman/Levi
Comments: 33
Kudos: 175





	1. Swelter

Mikasa watches the remnants of the cadets ushering out, sweat glueing their black uniforms onto their tired, aching bodies. Lieutenant Ackerman, baptized as slave-driver/a beautiful but deadly force to be reckoned with, by these new recruits, is no exception.

Violent hues of blood orange rays make their last attempt to scorch the training grounds, as a watchful half-moon bides its time in the violet skies. Mikasa is tired, more so from this heat than the exhaustion.

Her white blouse moulds itself to the hard planes of her abdomen, back and the soft slopes of her chest. She wipes the sheen off from her forehead, and lets out a sigh when the cadets have their eyes turned away from her.

She could imagine the vexed face her Captain would make at her filthy sight, but she had an appointment that could not be delayed. The thought of his irritated face alone was enough motivation for her to keep time.

* * *

From the vantage point of his private office, a pair of gunmetal eyes wait for the grounds to finish emptying. Captain Levi has a diminutive twitch in the corner of his mouth, one which was a scaled down version of the smirk that now embraces Mikasa's own lips.

Levi watches as the half-Oriental woman makes a bee-line towards the castle, with calculated, purposeful strides.

_Any moment now._

With eyes now back to the task at hand, he plucks a pen out of a well-worn book, and flourishes his signature onto the document addressed to Commander Arlert.

Levi _Ackerman_.

In a world unreservedly trying to right itself after the war, one where his kind would never be persecuted, he now proudly carries the clan-name his mother once did.

Standing with half his weight on an elaborately crafted chair, a muscular back faces the oak door, while a pen impatiently taps aginst his desk.

 _Knock-knock_ -

A pause follows the dull percussion. The pause is no longer than one exhale from a breath he did not realize he was holding back.

And another _knock_ \- as expected; as was her customary cue to enter.

Levi does not bother to ask who is at the door. His guest surfaces into his office from the hallway and clicks the door shut behind her with lithe, calloused fingers.

"Come in," he intones, voice seeping with sarcasm and the tiredness of the duties of that day.

"Done with training the new brats already, Lieutenant?"

When her nimble footsteps stop behind him, he schools his expression down to one that does not relay how he spent the better half of his tea-time watching Mikasa pummel new recruits into the Earth. Looking over one broad shoulder, Levi spares her a bored glance.

His mind half-cradles the curious desire for her to have felt his eyes with all their less than innocent intentions, boring into the back of her black hair, down and up and down her drenched breasts and along the pale sliver of occasionally exposed hip, through the better part of her lessons.

"Mhm," Mikasa replies."They seem promising," she admits, freely giving appreciation where it was due.

"Hn," Levi delivers the same curt acknowledgement as from when she had taken down the Jaws Titan.

They indeed seemed promising. New recruits- new flesh for a world anew, which harboured no need for child soldiers, trying to set itself upright, where man with his politics and ideologies was the worst enemy and not man-eating titans. And on second thought, a world promising enough to start a life anew if he dare; if he dare think about it.

"Did you finish up with that document?" Hot breath fans the side of his temple. "I need to submit it to Armin by tomorrow morning."

Awaiting his answer, Mikasa unsticks her blouse from her heated skin, to and fro in waves, allowing the cool air of the room to fan away the sheen in the dip between her breasts and the precipice of her clavicles.

"Brat," he bites out at the sight before him. "Go take a shower. You're stinking it up in here."

Levi shoots her a schooled glare when she doesn't stop. It was one full of underlying challenge, one he has worn many times on sparring grounds when his thighs had locked Mikasa's waist into their rightful place between them.

A look of irritation flashes pass her face momentarily with his words.

He flippantly returns to the well-worn book with a flick of the hand that had been wittled down to 3 fingers.

Levi's attention is not caught by the title of the book, nor the inscriptions staining its weathered pages.

He waits. And he bides his time.

_Any moment now._

A pair of arms snake their way down his broad shoulders, along his rippling biceps, and finishes their descent when fingers brush across his scarred knuckles.

He could practically feel his Lieutenant seething down his back and into his core. With a nudge from her knees, she pushes her Captain's form closer to his ornate desk, as those arms box his frame in between them.

Her pert and moderately-endowed breasts mould themselves against the vast expanse of the solid and compact muscles of his back. Her jaw-length hair tickles his temples.

There’s a touch of surprise that crosses over him, and he does not know what to say.

He slowly looks back at her, his grey eyes peering out under sooty eyelashes.

The sight and sound, or lack thereof, of Humanity’s Strongest made speechless, was satisfying, and Mikasa did not hide her mirth from him.

They were standing so close; inappropriately close.

If he wanted to he could count the number of her overlapping black lashes, the drops of sweat on her forehead, and the almost imperceptible quiver of her cupid's bow. Eventually, she speaks first.

"I do not stink," she states matter of factly with a look of indignation splashed across her beautiful face.

_She didn't, he knew that._

_A many a thing was dirty to Levi, but a beautiful Mikasa Ackerman bathed in dying sunlight, soaked shirt, dark eyes challenging him, was not one of them. But a prideful man like him would never say it out loud for her ears._

"And absolutely filthy."

Unlike her, he is patient. Levi makes some sort of smirk, finding no reason to answer her with complete sentences.

It was probably less than a second, but he catches it painted across her aquiver eyebrows- the moment of conception of an especially childish idea.

"What is it Captain Levi - can't handle a bit of sweat?"

He meets her challenge with a halfhearted glare, as she runs her arms up and down his biceps making sure to leave half-mooned indentations in the exposed skin of his well-veined forearms. Her breasts push up and into his toned back.

Mikasa's lips ghost along his neck with promise of more to come. No doubt she feels elated at having irked some of his irrational compulsion for absolute cleanliness.

However, the very feelings shoot molten ichor down his spine and straight to his groin, kindling a different sort of compulsion.

The book is long-forgotten.

" _Mikasa_."

He meant to warn, but it comes out more breathless than he intended.

"Lieutenant, I do not need to tell you how inappropriate this is,” he said with finality - his voice even, flat and devoid of any other slip-up.

If it hadn’t been for the slow rise and dip of his Adam's apple, Mikasa would have faltered. The sight of an annoyed and _dirty_ Levi coated with the sweat he hated the most, should have been enough petty vengeance for her for one day.

She studied the hard planes of her Captain's face. His brows pinched, and his once grey pupils blown out of arousal - two stones of heated charcoal.

An oh so familiar fire ignited low in her belly, one that had always reserved undying, crackling embers for this one man.

Levi heard her swallow.

Nonetheless, Mikasa did not falter; could not falter.

His previous biting taunts and his beautifully traitorous face pressed her on and press on she did.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my very first Rivamika fic, and I guess I decided to write smut (not in this chapter), with a bit of fluff and plot. 😷 Set after the war, slightly dom!Mikasa, and a slightly sub!Levi who really likes to egg her on.  
> The ratings will change from T to M in the next chapter.


	2. Yield

Levi has never been one to surrender control. Control was as much the essence of his being, as was cleanliness. He would not forgo either, lest it remind him of his days in the Underground. 

He was loath to yield—to anyone. 

He was prideful, controlled, calculating and clean. Mikasa was strength, graceless efficiency in the battlefield, and an all-consuming fire. Perhaps, he had stoked that fire too far today. 

Needless to say, he is now more than a little surprised to find predatory dark eyes that scan his eyes, chapped lips and lock onto his vulnerable, exposed throat. 

He is trapped between the desk and his subordinate's hold. It would be no feat at all for him to switch their positions, yet he does not want to escape the warmth on his back and the leg pushing into the back of his knee, urging him closer still towards his desk. No, he wants to _yie_ -

He inhales sharply as the realization overtakes him. It feels like vibrations are thrumming through his heart, spluttering up his carotids, meandering down to peripheral pulses. There is a fair bit of dread at the realization of what he has become, mixed with a shameful arousal.

Mikasa would press on like she promised herself. And press on she did, with her pink lips sampling the sweltering skin of his neck and feeding on the cacophony of thrumming vibrations there — just under an expectant Levi's undercut. He smells like clean laundry, the generic military-issued soap used in the barracks. 

“Inappropriate,” Mikasa echoes his sentiment lazily, between close-mouthed kisses peppering Levi's flesh, without a trace of remorse to her insubordinate tone. 

“Shut up.”

The muscles of his neck both stand at attention and became pliant under her torturous ministrations. An unconcealed groan makes their way out of his lips, unbidden.

He could feel her crooked smirk forming against his heated flesh, and no doubt she could feel how every 5'3" of him turned to marble under her gaze. 

When he regains some semblance of the control he believes in, he finds Mikasa leaning over him, a blush peppering her cheeks and lust in her determined eyes. 

He wonders what he looks like to her, in that very moment.

What she sees in the man below her, forces her lips to change tide, from a promise to primal markings upon his neck — all teeth- tongue hopelessly trying to soothe the flame away before a sucking mouth would draw his skin back between her incisors.

The air was charged, alive.

Her eyes judge the blooming bruise at the junction of his neck and clavicle with passing pride. Warmth pooled low in her again. No cravat in all of Eldia would be enough to cover up that handiwork. 

Levi bit his lip to stop himself from moaning. The spike of liquid pleasure that runs flow him this time has nothing to do with her mouth and everything to do with how much she enjoyed taking pride in having marked him.

In passing reverie, Mikasa’s hold on him loosened.

The world spun. She was the one facing grey eyes, resolved now. 

_Always the first to recover_ , she thinks, _that damned shorty_.

Levi had captured both her wrists and had pinned them by the side of her thighs. He is certain she will find 8 angry crescent-moons on her wrists tomorrow even through covered arms—but she is driving him insane. 

He must already be insane if he was so ready to relinquish his _control_ to this _filthy_ Lieutenant, who’s been rolling around in the dirt with a bunch of other sweaty brats, as per her job description.

He roughly tugs her wrists, brings her eyes to his level. With his nose pressed against her cheek, he whispers, the words all but rumbling in his chest — “This will only happen once, like this.” 

“If I didn’t know any better,” Mikasa counters leaning in closer, with a threat to reveal his inner workings, “I’d say you don’t actually find me as filthy as you pret — ” 

The smirk on her face is wiped off by Levi slamming his lips onto hers. A shocked whimper in her throat reverberates against his mouth. A breath huffs against her, and she realizes he finds her amusing. 

_No, she would not let him have the last laugh._

Mikasa grabbed at his wrists and pushed them away. She gave his hair a good yank, tilting his head back. Angling his face, she licked at the seam of his lips.

He would not respond.

She grabs him harder and, _oh fuck_ , he groaned at the sensation of short fingernails raking his scalp and rough hands entwining around his hair, and all he wanted to do was comply.

Mikasa bit at his lower lip and sucked until he gasped. She took that opportunity to slip past his lips. Her svelte tongue slid across his teeth and his gums. Their mouths were retreating and advancing now; ebbing and flowing.

Her one hand busied itself with a fistful of his hair. Another pale hand snaked itself around his throat. Her thumb lazily encircled the carotid pulse at the side of his neck, which had been beating furiously for her.

Curiosity made her pull away, far enough to fracture the thread of saliva connecting them. Mikasa looked down her aquiline nose.

Levi's pupils were shot. He was panting open-mouthedly, and almost imperceptibly had moved _closer_ to the hand at his jugular. And she felt like she could burst with happiness knowing what she did to this man.

Mikasa swooped down, took his whole tongue into her mouth, sucked and undulated her own hot tongue around it.

Levi moaned at the sensation, as his hands grabbed hold onto her forearms again to steady himself.

 _Where'd she learn how to do that_ he wondered with a jealous twinge.

And oh, how he wanted to touch her now.

He breaks the kiss at last to transition both of her wrists to one hand. Levi uses the free one to undo her buttons quickly, and lavishes the pale skin exposed to him.

His tongue grazed the valley between her breasts, and snaked indecently over the salty moisture that had pooled there from their ongoing heated exploit. He pulled down her brassiere. Levi smirked as her exposed breasts spilled out into the cold air. A groan escaped her.

His hands released Mikasa's.

He lowered his face to one breast and his hand reached up to curve the underside of another. His tongue tended to the skin around her nipple with languorous strokes as he studied Mikasa's face.

Half-lidden, biting back a moan, a look of absolute desperation painted her features. Her traitorous nipples stood at the prospect of getting much needed attention, which he would not give her.

Mikasa pushed his face closer to her chest. He could feel his pulsing and painful erection pressed against his pants.

He grazed his teeth along her pert nipples, dragged his obliging tongue along their mauve tips, and lavished attention to both her nipples. His calloused, rough hands began their descent up and down Mikasa's waist, squeezing her closer to him. Wherever he touched, she was lit aflame.

She moaned, arching her back and her body further into Levi's erection. His hips rolled forward involuntarily blindingly searching her core. Another huff met her chest, a breathless pant now, and this time she found him amusing.

His mouth left her breast, and finally met her neck greedily, returning with full vigor what she had given him.

Where she had been primal, he was calculating- trying to commit to his taste-buds’ memories how her salt tasted, how her nuchal muscles stirred under his unyielding sucks, how she smelled like the pine trees near her childhood home.

There were tangled knots in her belly now and Mikasa wanted that release. Her adroit hands made a quick ascent to his shoulders, and then down his pectorals where his heart beat furiously against his ribs, along the terrain of his abdominal muscles- inching lower, at a pace that was a total antithesis of the mouth teasing her flesh. 

When her hands grab at his belt to push him further towards her, he pushes those same hands away none too gently.

Levi, to his credit, tries to curb his response, tries to fool Mikasa into thinking her Superior isn’t thinking about burying himself to the hilt in her.

“Levi, please.“ 

On another day, he would have, perhaps, loved to hear this insubordinate brat beg, whimper and plead for release, under him. Today he wonders if she would fuck him like she fights him.

When her hands reach out to his belt again, there is the sharp sound of metal clattering, as he all but slaps her hands away from the buckle. Still a little breathless, Levi slicks his wet hair back with disinterest.

 _"Tch,_ rather impatient today aren’t we, brat?" 

Levi wants to see if it will be embarrassment, anger, or a newly kindled desperation that causes her inevitable outburst. 

But what she does next makes his eyes widen and jaws slacken synchronously. 

There was another clatter, as Mikasa’s arm shot out to push the desk's paraphernalia onto the carpeted floor. She grabs Levi, and all but throws him onto the desk. He steadies himself on his elbows, shocked, but curiously thrilled that his new vantage point puts him at the same height as this maddening woman.

 _"_ Oi, what do you think you’re doing?" He glares at her, eyes a dark mixture of defiance and lust. 

_"Tch,"_ she mocks him. Mikasa looks down at the khaki-clad cock, standing proud between his legs and smirks. "I’ve barely touched you and you’re already this hard. _Rather impatient today aren’t we?_ "

Her fingers ghost over the ridges of his erection. 

"You enjoy hearing yourself talk, don’t you?”

Mikasa presses the heel of her hand into the bruise on his shoulder and slams his back down. His breath catches at the impact. If it weren’t for their eschew clothing this time, this would look like yet another mutiny led by Mikasa.

 _Point fucking taken_ , he thought.

"Did I say you could talk to me?”

Panting, Levi shakes his head once slowly.

She rewards his obedience by palming his heat through his pants. 

He tips his head back, oh, _fuck_. His hips threatened to lift of the table in search of contact. She takes her hand away.

“Touch me and I’ll walk out this door,” she says and is both surprised and not when he plants his forearms by his sides.

His pulsating rod is allowed a few strokes. Every ridge tended to shoots heat up and down his spine, until he is moaning shamelessly below her. Mikasa lifts her hand away, and he whimpers slightly at the loss of contact, but does not reach out to her or talk back. He was rock hard now, and _well-behaved_ , Mikasa thought.

"Good."

Mikasa quickly unbuttons him to reveal a body honed of sculpted muscle and pale skin. The back of her fingers graze over the terrain of his sweaty, slick abdominal muscles, and in return, they twitch under her provocation.

"Captain", she finally acknowledges his presence, "you've made me filthy." 

"Suck me clean,” she instructs, putting two fingers past his panting mouth, regaling in the perverse pleasure of making him eat his own words.

And Levi does, closing his eyes, and running his tongue around her long digits, lapping at the web between them.

His eyes meet her when he is satisfied that her skin is clean. Mikasa's piercing sight shoots pleasure through his cock, and in that moment, he tightens the suction on the fingers — that have killed, that have nurtured — and he sucks those fingers out of a devotion he wouldn't reveal to her yet.

She removes herself from his mouth, rubbing saliva over his lower lip and neck, as she trails her hand downwards, slowly, and rests it against his erection.

_She's trying to kill me._

“Something you need, Levi?”

_She’s teasing me._

“Touch me.” 

“Say please.”

She releases him and sets to righting her blouse. 

“Please, fucking please, _touch me,_ Mikasa."

Mikasa chuckles darkly, slipping out of her blouse and undoing her brassier.

"Isn't too hard to behave, now is it, Levi?" She rolls his name of her tongue.

He shook his head slowly, his grip tightening on the edge of the table. He could feel the tightening in his sack, and warmth coiling in his pelvis. He was at a loss of words, taking in the semi-naked form of Mikasa, bathed in the last glow of the sunset.

_Those fucking brats better be occupied with dinner now._

She lowered her head down and licked and sucked a heated path from his navel. His head tilted back to expose his pale neck. She wanted to bite the flesh there, but settled for dragging the tip of her incisors along the deep V carved into his abdomen, and felt his hold on edge of the table tighten, threatening to splinter it.

She inched downward wanting to feel his reaction and he obliged with a sharp intake of breath as the hard ridge of his sex nestled between her unclad breasts. She slid back, and then up, to lave his quivering pelvis, angling her body to squeeze the heated rod between her breasts, where it twitched brazenly with pre-cum threatening to spill.

Levi made a sound—a low groan that sounded curiously like 'please'—and it made the delicious liquid heat spread in her again.

She liked this side of him, that was only revealed to her. Mikasa recognized that she could hunger for this contraindication from him. She wanted to hear that sound again, and again and Levi complied.

"Please, fuck me," he _pleads_.

Mikasa hastily discards her pants, undergarment and clambers onto the table. Levi scans her precarious position, takes in her glassy eyes, heaving breasts, the body honed like his and the delicious sight at the apex of her muscled thighs.

She undoes his buckle deftly and he gulps. 

He could cum right now, like this.

She was going to kill him.

Mikasa pumps him a few times, and he sighs throatily. She runs her thumb along the pre-cum that had beaded his sensitive head, and runs it along the hard ridges and his prominent veins.

She guides his velvety heat to her silken core, and Levi moans as the heat makes his cock twitch and her juices coat him even thicker.

Mikasa engulfs him, devours him, he thinks, sheaths him in her warmth, followed by a long drawn out sigh.

And then she was moving.

Her body rocked him closer and closer towards her core. She placed her hands on his chest and she was fucking him earnestly now, euphoric to be tended by the ridges she had teased a few moments ago, till only the sound of unabashed gasping, slick flesh slapping flesh permeated the thick air of his office.

“Can I touch you, please?“ Levi asks through ragged breaths. His voice was punctuated with lust, this revelation only adding to his shameful arousal.

When she permits, his hands are everywhere, everywhere until they grab her behind and push her further into him, achieving the carnal contact that had escaped his grasp. He meets her for every stroke, pushes his full length into her until it becomes impossible to decipher where he begins and she ends. 

And there was that primal fire in her eyes, like she would take everything from him — it was all too intense for Levi. He would give her everything.

Past precedents have let him know where to find her core, and he angles his hips at an angle all too delicious for Mikasa to stay coherent. 

“Ah, _fuck_ ,” she screams above him. 

Mikasa falls forward, latches her arms around his neck and pistons her hips into his pelvis. He could feel the liquid ichor coiling and twisting as his sack tightened. Her breasts and hardened nipples encounter his chest at an increasing frequency. 

“Mikasa, you feel so...” He could come just like this, he really could. 

The last thing he sees before his vision un-focuses is that erotic expression that slithers into far too many of those scandalous daydreams he has while surveying the Lieutenant from his office. 

Right as Levi feels himself teetering off the edge of the precipice, Mikasa plummets first. She comes apart when he feels her walls tightening themselves around him. Mikasa's kiss-swollen lips gasp out a string of broken Levi’s hotly into his ear. She shudders and stills on top of her Captain, boneless and thoroughly having had her fill after taking everything from him.

Eventually, the ecstasy coursing through his cock, takes full control of his mind. He drives into her with unsteady, uncontrolled thrusts. His thrusts lose all semblance of finesse, entering her from below with an all-consuming need to be satiated. 

His mind goes blank. Hips faltering, movements becoming sloppy, he is pretty sure he’s screaming Mikasa’s name.

Mikasa pushes herself up, and watches his vulnerable face with unconcealed adoration, the way his brows pinch together above his half-lidded eyes, his slackened jaw.

Her hips continue to undulate until she wrenches the last of his orgasm out from him, and the last of his groans from his hoarse throat.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he gasps after three more drawn out strokes. 

Mikasa sighs happily and rests her weight atop her Captain. Levi pulls his arms around her back after regaining a bit of composure, trying to keep their frames steady, in their precarious position of being draped over furniture.

“Well now we’re both filthy,” Mikasa giggles, tracing lazy hieroglyphs on his chest. He musses and kisses the top of her head.

He could care less about cleaning, perhaps at some point in his life, that was all he could have cared about. But now with Mikasa in his arms, only one thought preoccupies his mind.

He carries her down, and positions themselves on his chair, with Mikasa in his lap, her arms linked around his neck, the top of his head under her chin.

“You weren’t actually filthy to begin with,” Levi admits quietly, “not to me, well never to me anyway.”

Mikasa looks at him a little confused.

”I was just trying to rile you up,” he offers as explanation, ”but as usual you ended up getting carried away by fucking me, my pride and my furniture.” Levi motions towards the desk that was now leaning dangerously more towards one side.

”Oh, that was your idea of playful banter,” Mikasa states. ”You truly have no luck with women then, Levi.”

”You’ve ruined me,” he tells her with mirth in his eyes, ”I don’t think I could get married now.” 

”I will take responsibility,” Mikasa offers this time, humorously.

”Will you truly, Lieutenant Mikasa?” Levi asks sincerely, looking up at her and into her dark eyes, a smile painting his satiated face.

”That depends. Did you finish signing that document?”

After a quick survey, Levi reaches down to pluck a paper off the floor, which Mikasa had knocked down minutes ago. His signature had been smudged from their escapade but it was still legible.

”Let’s see.” Mikasa began to give the document a once-over, before making any final adjustments if need be. 

Levi watched with unconcealed adoration, how her face went from deep in concentration, to satisfaction, till a smile started to loom in the corner of her lips. 

He could truly give her everything she asked for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you for reading this and I hope it was worth your time. Please, expect fluff in the next and final chapter of Swelter.


	3. Rumour has it

Levi wears something akin to worry on his visage when he takes in the indentations of the battle —hardened leather gear on her muscled arms slowly disappearing under white fabric.

Mikasa turns around to see her half-dressed Captain get up from the chair where she had been draped over not too long ago.

The large windows behind him usher in a cool breeze and show the half-moon against a darkening sky.

He comes to a halt several steps before her with lighted lamp in hand; the fire flickers wildly against the cool breeze and the orange lights dance against his unreadable face.

Her calloused fingers graze over the worrisome folds between Levi's eyebrows, ironing them down into a peaceful expression placed on top of a strikingly more youthful man. 

"I'll be handing this over to Armin first thing in the morning, and I'll take the day off to check out the property," her gaze points to the letter on his desk. "But I trust your choice nonetheless, Captain."

"Your decision on the matter is still important." 

He leaves out _to me_ but she catches it nonetheless and offers up a genuine smile in response. A myriad of visions of _home_ surface into her mind.

"Tell me about the house again, Captain," she asks, bending down to slip a boot on slowly.

"Two storeys, two bedrooms on the top floor, large arched windows" Levi states concisely - she thinks of a home bestowed with her embroidery, her mother's and her grandmother's -"a garden in the back and a large tree overlooking a small lake. Right, that sounds perfect," she adds, stretching her toes out in her well-worn boots.

Levi hums his approval, low in his throat. 

Blue specks in his gunmetal eyes measure this Mikasa before him - bathed in an afterglow, the embers of light reflected on the sheen of her forehead, with her loosened tongue, loosened limbs.

"Enough space for the beginnings of a humble tea shop downstairs, and there's a tea plantation nearby." 

Just like the plans he had told her about 5 months ago, when they found each other awake after the nightmares failed to let sleep take them, right after she had divulged wanting to settle down far from the walls, with a small cottage and a flower garden and an aging tree to look over her aging self and her house.

It became difficult for Levi to reconcile the image of the better half of Humanity's Strongest leading a simple, predictable life, alone and with all the time in her world to ponder about the blood on her hands as her mind flips through well-archived nightmare fodder.

So instead of telling her that he cares too deeply to let her be miserable, one night under a full moon they had discussed the post-military benefits that would go into purchasing property, the climate perfect for growing tea and flora and everything under the sun except how much they would miss each other's ever-constant presence, the knowing lone figure knocking on the door at night that would keep the nightmares at bay after waking up, the cup of black tea that would appear at Levi's desk when he needed it the most, the clothes torn from training cadets that would end up magically sewn the next day when Mikasa had forgotten to take care of them. 

Ever the pragmatic duo they finally settled on pooling their post-military funds together to look for a place of residence that would suit their shared needs. 

"And if you do want to take responsibility, you'd be working for free for me in that teashop." 

Despite herself, she looks at him, with apparent surprise that he had still been mulling over that word in his mind.

She wonders if he would name the shop Ackerman Tea and chuckles at the afterthought.

Too late in the effort of sobering herself from the afterglow, the words leave her mouth without being put through a filter first.

Her next words aren't loud, but they are true.

"I promise to take responsibility, Captain. For all my insubordination, the times you had to drag my stubborn ass away from danger, for all the times I injured you." She gathers her raven locks away from the back of her neck, where the strands clung uncomfortably, and into a small bun. "But working in your sweatshop without pay was not what I had in mind."

She pushes his soft hair back and places a tender kiss to his forehead- her lips cool against his heated skin.

Levi's heart constricts momentarily— would he dare even think about it, the home and the peace she was offering him now?

He takes the letter into his hands again, and presses his lips together with the frustration he refuses to exhibit.

"You say that like you're the poster child of obedience now", he deadpans, instead.

This time, she tosses him an unimpressed glare, something she had picked up from years of training and learning under him. 

"Could we hold a house-warming party?"

Levi shifts his gaze down to take a cursory glance at the paper, goes through the motions of reading, while Mikasa starts buttoning his shirt.

_...15th Commander, Survey Corps, Armin Arlert_

Levi grunts _._

"I'd be more than delighted to celebrate the last day I ever have to see those _brats_."

She had never heard that term being uttered so affectionately by him before.

 _This letter is intended to serve as my official resignation_...

"We can hold it under that tree. I could wear that blue dress Historia gave me."

Mikasa runs her hands over his buttoned shirt, smoothening away any creases from their bout of passion earlier today.

_...two weeks from the aforementioned date..._

Levi's eyes scan the slanted inked letters,until they begin to lose focus halfway down the crinkled paper. 

_based on my spotless record...receive an honorable discharge..._

He hums his consent, but it is not a blue dress he sees. 

He sees Mikasa clad in white and lace, the lights through the leaves splaying flitting shadows across the angles of her face, while he reaches up to tuck in a lock behind her ear.

"Expect nothing less than the sharpest suit on me," Levi adds with mirth.

Mikasa thinks of her Captain, who took hold of her bloody, shaken frame, pulling her back to this world following Eren's inevitable demise, in the days when Armin and her had refused to look at one other; _could not_ look at one another, knowing what they had done to their own family.

Mikasa thinks of the same strong arms, swaying her to the soft tunes at Armin's wedding, his muscles cascading under one of his impeccable dark suits.

She doesn't let herself think of worn-out memories spent on the coast during the war. She thinks of Levi's strong arms and Armin's softened smile and finds her own happiness in between. Those were happier days, and Levi had been there to see them with her too.

_..been an honour and pride working alongside my brave comrades and superiors..._

"We'll invite our closest friends and comrades."

Levi wonders if he could dance with her again, if she would let him.

He still recalls the coolness of her cheek against the crook of his neck, the gentle smile on her lips that day, as they danced with sand between their toes.

Would she wear that smile for him?

Would their comrades cheer and cause a ruckus like they had at Armin's wedding?

"Don't forget the wine."

Levi thinks of Erwin and the bottles of fine wine he had bequeathed upon him, aging away in the cellar. 

Levi thinks of leaving two chairs empty — one at the head of the table and another at his left. 

Mikasa's warm hand is on his hips now, as she gingerly pulls his belt through his the loops, an act so affectionate, it should not have been.

He thinks of that same warm hand again, intertwined in his own, at his right side. She had always been his right hand.

He painfully wonders how many seats she would leave empty at the table if the thought had ever occurred to her, but decides to not dwell on that.

_...Sincerely, Lieutenant Mikasa Ackerman._

In its stead, he thinks of a companionable silence between the two of them, one they had shared many years ago when she stopped trying to actively spite him. Mikasa humming a tune and working on her embroidery; Levi sewing the last cravat she ever ripped.

"Thank you for everything, Levi." Mikasa looks at him, setting the buckle in place.

Levi tilts his head. He's studying the number of her lashes, the seconds spanning between each blink, the quiver of her lip as she starts and stops to say something else.

The manner in which he studies her is so methodical she almost steps away.

He doesn't realize he's tracing heiroglyphs into her inner wrists until she shivers under his ministrations. It pulls Levi back to the moment.

For the first time, he decides to voice his thoughts honestly. When he speaks, he looks straight at her.

"I'll hold you to your promise, Mikasa."

Her breath hitches. Levi doesn't need to clarify which promise.

In response, she kisses him, gingerly at first, her lips molding onto his smile.

This kiss is different than before- it is softer, it is Mikasa hesitant but daring to ask for more. 

Levi pulls her closer to him and pushes her against the desk this time, deepening the kiss. 

Each of his touches is too deliberate, too sure and Mikasa feels her body aflame again. The kiss is now bruising.

Mikasa aligns herself to him. Her deft fingers start undoing the task they had been preoccupied with moments back. The buckle clatters and comes unfastened.

They make love slowly, cautiously.

After that they fuck at a pace so wanton, it is the second time that day that Levi screams her name without restraint. 

_Approved_ _and signed...Captain Levi Ackerman._

* * *

The next morning the new cadets are unable to come to terms with Mikasa's sudden resignation notice, when they find themselves at the mercy of a balding subsitute, instead of their Lieutenant.

The next morning, Mikasa is surprised to find Levi taking the day off too. He says it is to show her around the property, to make sure she doesn't get lost as if she's some newborn babe. 

But in all honestly, he wants to burn the image of Mikasa and him swaying across wooden floors, their only audience being the sunlight filtering in from those large, arched windows.

When they get back later that night, it is Armin who takes it upon himself to call Mikasa and Levi into his office, and tell them of the unsubstantiated rumours that have been making rounds among the cadets concerning Mikasa's pending resignation.

"Apparently you and the Captain fought — nothing new here — except the events concerning the incidence this time are alarming."

The Commander's grave gaze flickers from the duo in front of him, both wearing mirroring quizzical expressions of their own.

"Mikasa, some terrified cadets say they saw you throw Levi over his own desk! And Levi, another one swore she heard you screaming at Mikasa from outside your office. Is there something I should know?"

 _"Nosy, shitty brats_ ", Levi mumbles under his breath.

"Pardon, Captain?"

"Nothing of that sort...happened. Unsubstantiated rumours from cadets in heat-stroke." Mikasa squeaks in, her face slightly reddening. Armin chalks that up to the summer heat.

"Alright then, I'll take your word for it." Armin clears some documents away from his desk, and places Mikasa's resignation letter in front of the pair. 

"Mikasa, you still need to submit an address before you are eligible to apply for the post-military funds."

Mikasa fishes a piece of paper containing the details of her, _their_ , new residence, and hands it to the Commander.

Armin studies the address in his hand carefully. He looks up at her, with his features softened by a genuine smile.

"See you in Chlorba next week, Mikasa." She returns his gesture before shuffling out of his office.

"And your new address, Captain?"

Levi stalls for a second then taps his index finger twice against the paper Mikasa had left. 

"Well, guess you're not carpooling with the rest of us next week, Captain".

Levi decides that leaving now would keep matters simple, and he closes the door to surface into the corridor, where he unsurprisingly finds Mikasa waiting for him.

Armin chuckles to himself slightly, happy that his best friend is in safe hands, happy that his Captain no longer keeps his own happiness at an arm's length away. 

"Ah, rumours indeed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading my first Rivamika fic. Your comments made my heart very happy. 💕  
> When and if I improve at writing, I plan on revisiting this and editing this fic a bit more.  
> Sure hope the Ackerman duo keep experimenting with their new dynamic from the last chapter 💦


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